yt-dlp Web UI

A not so terrible web ui for yt-dlp.
Created for the only purpose of fetching videos from my server/nas.

Intended to be used with docker and in standalone mode. 😎👍

Developed to be as lightweight as possible (because my server is basically an intel atom sbc).

The bottleneck remains yt-dlp startup time.

Docker images are available on Docker Hub or ghcr.io.

docker pull marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui

# latest stable
docker pull ghcr.io/marcopeocchi/yt-dlp-web-ui:latest
# latest dev version
docker pull ghcr.io/marcopeocchi/yt-dlp-web-ui:master

Integrated File browser

Stream or download your content, easily.

Changelog

05/03/22: Korean translation by kimpig

03/03/22: cut-down image size by switching to Alpine linux based container

01/03/22: Chinese translation by deluxghost

03/02/22: i18n enabled! I need help with the translations :/

27/01/22: Multidownload implemented!

26/01/22: Multiple downloads are being implemented. Maybe by next release they will be there.
Refactoring and JSDoc.

04/01/22: Background jobs now are retrieved!! It's still rudimentary but it leverages on yt-dlp resume feature.

05/05/22: Material UI update.

03/06/22: The most requested feature finally implemented: Format Selection!!

08/06/22: ARM builds.

28/06/22: Reworked resume download feature. Now it's pratically instantaneous. It no longer stops and restarts each process, references to each process are saved in memory.

12/01/23: Switched from TypeScript to Golang on the backend. It was a great effort but it was worth it.

Settings

The currently avaible settings are:

• Server address
• Switch theme
• Extract audio
• Switch language
• Optional format selection
• Override the output filename
• Override the output path
• Pass custom yt-dlp arguments safely
• Download queue (limit concurrent downloads)

Format selection

This feature is disabled by default as this intended to be used to retrieve the best quality automatically.

To enable it just go to the settings page and enable the Enable video/audio formats selection flag!

Future releases will have:

• Multi download done
• Exctract audio done
• Format selection done
• Download archive done
• ARM Build done available through ghcr.io
• Playlist support

Troubleshooting

• It says that it isn't connected/ip in the header is not defined.
  • You must set the server ip address in the settings section (gear icon).
• The download doesn't start.
  • As before server address is not specified or simply yt-dlp process takes a lot of time to fire up. (Forking yt-dlp isn't fast especially if you have a lower-end/low-power NAS/server/desktop where the server is running)

Docker installation

# recomended for ARM and x86 devices 
docker pull marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui
docker run -d -p 3033:3033 -v <your dir>:/downloads marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui

Or with docker but building the container manually.

docker build -t yt-dlp-webui .
docker run -d -p 3033:3033 -v <your dir>:/downloads yt-dlp-webui

If you opt to add RPC authentication...

docker run -d \
    -p 3033:3033 \
    -e JWT_SECRET randomsecret
    -v /path/to/downloads:/downloads \
    marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui \
    --auth \
    --secret your_rpc_secret

If you wish for limiting the download queue size...

e.g. limiting max 2 concurrent download.

docker run -d \
    -p 3033:3033 \
    -e JWT_SECRET randomsecret
    -v /path/to/downloads:/downloads \
    marcobaobao/yt-dlp-webui \
    --qs 2

Prebuilt binaries installation

# download the latest release from the releases page
mv yt-dlp-webui_linux-[your_system_arch] /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp-webui

# /home/user/downloads as an example and yt-dlp in $PATH
yt-dlp-webui --out /home/user/downloads

# specifying yt-dlp path
yt-dlp-webui --out /home/user/downloads --driver /opt/soemdir/yt-dlp

# specifying using a config file
yt-dlp-webui --conf /home/user/.config/yt-dlp-webui.conf

Arguments

Usage yt-dlp-webui:
  -auth
        Enable RPC authentication
  -conf string
        Config file path
  -driver string
        yt-dlp executable path (default "yt-dlp")
  -out string
        Where files will be saved (default ".")
  -port int
        Port where server will listen at (default 3033)
  -qs int
        Download queue size (default 8)
  -secret string
        Secret required for auth

Config file

By running yt-dlp-webui in standalone mode you have the ability to also specify a config file. The config file will overwrite what have been passed as cli argument.

# Simple configuration file for yt-dlp webui

---
port: 8989
downloadPath: /home/ren/archive
downloaderPath: /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp

# Optional settings
require_auth: true
rpc_secret: my_random_secret
queue_size: 4

Systemd integration

By defining a service file in /etc/systemd/system/yt-dlp-webui.service yt-dlp webui can be launched as in background.

[Unit]
Description=yt-dlp-webui service file
After=network.target

[Service]
User=some_user
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp-webui --out /mnt/share/downloads --port 8100

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

systemctl enable yt-dlp-webui
systemctl start yt-dlp-webui

Manual installation

# the dependencies are: python3, ffmpeg, nodejs, psmisc, go.

cd frontend
npm i
npm run build

go build -o yt-dlp-webui main.go

Extendable

You dont'like the Material feel? Want to build your own frontend? We got you covered 🤠

yt-dlp-webui now exposes a nice JSON-RPC 1.0 interface through Websockets and HTTP-POST It is planned to also expose a gRPC server.

Just as an overview, these are the available methods:

• Service.Exec
• Service.Progress
• Service.Formats
• Service.Pending
• Service.Running
• Service.Kill
• Service.KillAll
• Service.Clear

For more information open an issue on GitHub and I will provide more info ASAP.

FAQ

• Will it availabe for Raspberry Pi/ generic ARM devices?
  • Yes, it's cross platform :) If you plan to use it on a Raspberry Pi ensure to have fast and durable storage.
• Why the docker image is so heavy?
  • Originally it was 1.8GB circa, now it has been slimmed to ~340MB compressed. This is due to the fact that it encapsule a basic Alpine linux image + FFmpeg + Node.js + Python3 + yt-dlp.
  • Update: Since Golang migration and Multi-Stage builds the Docker image is now 75MB circa. A reduction of over 400% in size :D.

What yt-dlp-webui is not

yt-dlp-webui isn't your ordinary website where to download stuff from the internet, so don't try asking for links of where this is hosted. It's a self hosted platform for a Linux NAS.